Every major character death in 'Stranger Things,' ranked by sadness

Robert Akers (Alex Breaux ) was introduced in season five as a high-ranking soldier reporting to Dr. Kay (Linda Hamilton) and stationed in the Upside Down. His orders were to find and capture Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), whom he viewed as a "freak." He was violent, unrelenting, misogynistic, and had basically zero redeeming qualities.

Time of death: Season five, episode eight, "The Rightside Up."

Cause of death: Forced to shoot himself by Eleven's psychic powers.

Sadness ranking: -1. Everybody cheered.

Grigori (Andrey Ivchenko) was a Terminator-like hitman tasked with protecting the secret Russian operation beneath the Starcourt Mall. He met his bloody end when Hopper (David Harbour) threw him into the gears of the gate-opening machine, which Soviet soldiers were using to access the Upside Down.

Time of death: Season three, episode eight, "The Battle of Starcourt."

Cause of death: Killed by Hopper in combat.

Sadness ranking: 0. It's hard to feel much sympathy for Grigori given his own penchant for murder; he killed the sweet scientist Alexei, for crying out loud, but more on that later. Hopper sends him off with a well-earned, "See you in hell."

Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) was once an ordinary kid named Henry Creel. Decades before the events of "Stranger Things," Henry was possessed by the Mind Flayer and imbued with the entity's evil magic.

Eventually, Henry became the first child test subject at Hawkins Lab, where his blood was used to create more superpowered children, including Eleven.

After Henry went on a killing spree in the lab, Eleven opened a portal and banished him to another dimension, where he was reunited with the Mind Flayer and transformed into the vine-covered creature known as Vecna.

Time of death: Season five, episode eight, "The Rightside Up."

Cause of death: Impaled by Eleven, then decapitated by Joyce (Winona Ryder).

Sadness ranking: 0.5. Even with Bower's masterfully nuanced performance as Henry slash One slash Mr. Whatsit slash Vecna, it's impossible to deny that in his final incarnation, that creepy wizard had to die.

Despite a last-ditch attempt by Will (Noah Schnapp) to appeal to his human past, Vecna admitted that he'd become too deeply entwined with the Mind Flayer to ever be free of its influence — the influence that led him to brutally murder his own mother and sister, nearly all of the kids who were held captive in Hawkins Lab, and dozens of other innocent people in Hawkins, not to mention everyone he psychologically tortured. He wreaked a phenomenal amount of havoc, and for the world to be safe, Vecna's defeat was inevitable.

The only scrap of pity for Vecna was earned in his final moments, as he choked on his own bile and blood. "The feeling that I want to convey and the words that I'm trying to get out are just, 'Please don't,'" Bower said.

Dr. Brenner, aka Papa (Matthew Modine), kidnapped Eleven as a newborn. He confined Eleven and her fellow child test subjects within Hawkins Lab, performing experiments on them.

Season four initially seemed like it would give Brenner a redemption arc. When Dr. Owens (Paul Reiser) brought Eleven to the Nina Project headquarters in Nevada, where she realized that Brenner was still alive, he briefly seemed to regain her trust.

However, Brenner re-revealed his true nature when Eleven attempted to leave the facility to help her friends in Hawkins. Instead of letting her go in peace, Brenner opted to drug her and hold her captive.

Lingering in Nevada proved to be the scientist's downfall when Lt. Sullivan (Sherman Augustus) attacked the compound. Brenner was shot and killed while attempting to escape with Eleven on foot.

Although he begged Eleven for forgiveness, her final words to him spoke volumes: "Goodbye, Papa."

Time of death: Season four, episode eight, "Papa."

Cause of death: Gunned down by the US military.

Sadness ranking: 1. Brenner returned in season four as a more complex, morally ambiguous character than he was presented previously. However, he once again tried to imprison Eleven and died almost immediately as a result. That feels an awful lot like karma.

Throughout season four of "Stranger Things," Hawkins High basketball star Jason Carver (Mason Dye) was on a violent crusade to avenge his girlfriend Chrissy, whose brutal murder was the first death of the season. (Again, more on that later.)

Unfortunately, Jason was way off base about the town's true threat, becoming a tragic representation of the Satanic Panic that gripped the US in the '80s.

Time of death: Season four, episode nine, "The Piggyback."

Cause of death: Torn apart by an expanding gate to the Upside Down.

Sadness ranking: 2. Jason was a narrow-minded pain in the ass throughout season four, so it's hard to imagine that anyone was sorry to see him go. But to be fair, he was driven mad by grief, so he earned a couple of points out of pity.

Agent Harmon (Ira Amyx) was one of two secret agents reporting to Owens who were assigned to protect Will, Mike (Finn Wolfhard), and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) in season four.

Harmon took a bullet when the US military surprise-attacked the Byers' house. As he was bleeding out in Argyle's pizza van, he used his final breaths to help the boys find Eleven.

Time of death: Season four, episode five, "The Nina Project."

Cause of death: Shot during a military raid on the Byers' house.

Sadness ranking: 2.5. Although Harmon wasn't a huge presence in the show, he seemed to genuinely care about trying to protect Eleven and the rest of the children. That and the relative shock of the raid made for a somewhat tragic demise.

A number of Hawkins residents fell victim to the Mind Flayer over the course of season three. Chief among them was Heather Holloway (Francesca Reale), a friendly lifeguard whom Billy attacked, kidnapped, and brought as a sacrifice to the fleshy monster.

Time of death: Season three, episode six, "E Pluribus Unum."

Cause of death: Dissolved into goo to form the body of the Mind Flayer, along with her parents, Mrs. Driscoll, and other unnamed residents of Hawkins.

Sadness ranking: 3. Heather was doomed from the moment her path crossed with Billy in his possessed state, but that didn't make her fate any less horrific.

Patrick McKinney (Myles Truitt), one of the members of the Hawkins High basketball team, began to show symptoms of Vecna's curse while investigating Chrissy's death with his teammates. He succumbed to the bone-snapping, eye-gouging evil in Lover's Lake.

Time of death: Season four, episode five, "The Nina Project."

Cause of death: Vecna's curse.

Sadness ranking: 3.5. Although we didn't learn much about Patrick prior to his death, he seemed like a mostly good kid, and he certainly didn't deserve to die by Vecna's sadistic hand. Additionally, Patrick's kindness toward Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) made his death sting that much more.

Fred Benson (Logan Riley Bruner), the managing editor at the Hawkins High newspaper, became Vecna's second teenage victim in season four. He began experiencing Vecna-induced hallucinations while traveling with Nancy (Natalia Dyer) to investigate Chrissy's death.

Time of death: Season four, episode two, "Vecna's Curse."

Cause of death: Vecna's curse.

Sadness ranking: 4. Vecna chose Fred to victimize because he was haunted by guilt. While afflicted by the curse, Fred was forced to hallucinate a car crash from his past, which he survived, but another kid did not.

It's upsetting to watch Fred relive the traumatic incident, and it's even more upsetting to watch Nancy realize that yet another of her friends has been killed by supernatural evil, while yet again, she was safe and clueless nearby.

Star cheerleader Chrissy Cunningham (Grace Van Dien) was described by Eddie as the "queen of Hawkins High." She was pretty and popular, yet privately struggled with maternal abuse and body image issues — struggles that Vecna was all too happy to exploit with his signature psychological torture.

Chrissy fell to Vecna's curse during an ill-timed visit to Eddie's trailer. At that time, hers was arguably the most gruesome death in the show's history, setting the tone for season four's Freddy Krueger-inspired killing spree.

Time of death: Season four, episode one, "The Hellfire Club."

Cause of death: Vecna's curse.

Sadness ranking: 5. In the meager screentime she was given, Chrissy came across as kind, naive, and entirely undeserving of her fate.

Although she only appeared alive in a single episode, Chrissy was established as a multidimensional character, someone you couldn't help but root for. Her charming banter with Eddie gave us a glimpse into what could have been. That potential made her death all the more gut-wrenching.

From the moment of his arrival in season two, Billy Hargrove was a bully. He was particularly cruel to his younger step-sister, Max (Sadie Sink), and her boyfriend, Lucas.

That's not to say that Billy himself didn't suffer; he was physically abused by his father and never healed from the death of his mother.

Billy's trauma and pent-up aggression made him the perfect host for the Mind Flayer in season three. Although he spent most of those episodes acting at the beast's behest, Dacre Montgomery's vivid portrayal offered glimpses into Billy's true self, which seemed to be stained with fear, pain, and guilt.

Time of death: Season three, episode eight, "The Battle of Starcourt."

Cause of death: Stabbed through the heart by the Mind Flayer.

Sadness ranking: 6. As the Mind Flayer ravaged the Starcourt Mall, Eleven helped Billy break free of its control by reminding him of his beloved mother. Struck with sudden clarity, Billy sacrificed himself to the monster's wrath.

Did Billy atone for all his sins with this last-minute act of heroism? Not exactly. But he's one of the few characters who's managed to save Eleven, rather than the other way around — and it was heartbreaking to witness the horror on Max's face as her brother was violently impaled. Her lasting trauma is what made Billy's death tragic.

Alexei (Alec Utgoff) was a Russian scientist tasked with opening a new gate to the Upside Down in Hawkins. He was taken into custody by Joyce, Hopper, and Murray (Brett Gelman) after they discovered the secret plot.

Removed from the demands of his superiors, it was hard not to develop affection for Alexei as he gossiped with Murray, played carnival games, and guzzled cherry Slurpees.

Time of death: Season three, episode seven, "The Bite."

Cause of death: Shot by Grigori.

Sadness ranking: 6.5. Alexei was never going to make it out of season three alive. He was labeled a traitor by the Soviets and hunted down by Grigori, who shot him in the middle of a Fourth of July carnival. Alexei was still gripping the giant stuffed animal he'd just won.

Even though it seemed inevitable, Alexei's murder was surprisingly poignant, especially as Murray tried and failed to save him.

Like Eleven, Kali Prasad (Linnea Berthelsen) was abducted by Dr. Brenner as a child and imprisoned as a test subject in Hawkins Lab. She had the number eight tattooed on her arm, and she had the power to induce visual, auditory, and tactile hallucinations.

Sometime before Henry's killing spree, Kali managed to escape the lab and went into hiding. She used her abilities to seek revenge, tracking down and killing people who helped facilitate Dr. Brenner's experiments.

In season two, Eleven used her own powers to find Kali, and the two formed a sisterly bond. Kali reappeared in season five, when Eleven rescued her from the military base located in the Upside Down; Dr. Kay and her military forces had recaptured Kali, intending to use her blood to create more superpowered children, just as Dr. Brenner used Henry's.

Kali agreed to join Eleven on her mission to kill Henry/Vecna. She also convinced her sister that, in order to end the cycle of violence, they would both need to die — or, at least, to disappear. As she bled out from her gunshot wound, she told Eleven not to cry because her story was "always going to end here."

Time of death: Season five, episode eight, "The Rightside Up."

Cause of death: Shot by Lt. Akers in the Upside Down version of Hawkins Lab.

Sadness ranking: 7. Kali was never a fan-favorite character, and there is some solace in knowing that she was at peace with her own death. Still, she deserved so much more than being hunted and abused for most of her short life.

Later in the finale, Mike theorized that Kali's death wasn't what it appeared to be — that she survived long enough to help Eleven escape the military, using her hallucinatory power to trick everyone into thinking they saw Eleven die. If true, Kali used her final moments to give her sister the freedom and peace she never had.

Benny Hammond (Chris Sullivan) was the first person Eleven met after escaping from Hawkins Lab, the government facility where she was tortured and traumatized for her entire life. He gave her food and showed her kindness. Understandably, he also called social services, believing Eleven to be an ordinary runaway who needed help.

That phone call was intercepted by the federal Department of Energy, which, at that point in the story, owned and operated Hawkins Lab. Secret agents arrived at Benny's restaurant that very night and murdered him in cold blood. The shooting was staged to look like a death by suicide, leaving Benny's loved ones in mourning and confusion. 

Time of death: Season one, episode one, "The Vanishing of Will Byers."

Cause of death: Shot by DOE agent Connie Frazier.

Sadness ranking: 7.5. Benny was murdered in the very first episode of "Stranger Things," and it came as quite a soul-crushing shock. It immediately established the stakes of the show — and the extreme level of violence Brenner's team was willing to commit in the name of recapturing Eleven.

Bob Newby (Sean Astin) was a goofy yet endearing addition in season two.

Introduced as Joyce's devoted new boyfriend, there wasn't much to dislike about the enthusiastic Radio Shack employee. Throughout the season, Bob proved himself dedicated to becoming a member of the Byers family, and he did his best to support Will and Jonathan through their recent traumas.

Unfortunately, Bob was dragged into the line of fire after Hopper went missing in the tunnels beneath Hawkins. Bob helped Joyce track him down and later joined the gang on a dangerous mission into Hawkins Lab.

When the power went out in the Demodog-infested lab, Bob volunteered to reset the breakers, being the only one in the group with knowledge of the computer programming language. Although his solo mission was a success, the writing was on the wall when he accidentally left his gun behind at the computer terminal.

Time of death: Season two, episode eight, "The Mind Flayer."

Cause of death: Mauled by a pack of Demodogs.

Sadness ranking: 8. Sweet, innocent Bob. He never stood a chance. The pain of his gory death was aggravated by the fact that Joyce was there to witness it — and the fact that he was so close to survival, making it all the way to the lab's lobby before the monsters caught up with him.

Will wasn't the only kid to go missing in season one of "Stranger Things." There was also Barbara Holland, aka Barb (Shannon Purser), Nancy's best friend.

Shortly after Will's disappearance, Barb accompanied Nancy to hang out with Steve (Joe Keery) at his house — begrudgingly, yes, but out of love and support for her best friend. It wasn't long before Nancy asked Barb to leave so she and Steve could be alone.

Barb, left stranded and bleeding by Steve's pool, became an easy target for the Demogorgon.

The creature dragged Barb into the Upside Down and killed her, leaving her rotting corpse for Eleven to find later. Barb's death became a catalyst for Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve to join the fight against the supernatural evils in Hawkins — but otherwise, it didn't receive much screentime.

Barb's death struck a nerve when the first season aired. Fans demanded justice, enraged by the fact that no one in Hawkins except for Nancy seemed to care about Barb as much as Will. The show's creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, were taken aback by the passion.

"The one note that we consistently got back was, 'What about Barb?' And we're like, 'It's a show about Will,'" Ross recently told Time.

"Netflix kept harassing us about it," Matt added. "And it turns out they were right."

Time of death: Season one, episode three, "Holly, Jolly."

Cause of death: Killed by the Demogorgon.

Sadness ranking: 9. Barb's grisly death was made even more distressing by Nancy's grief.

Tormented by survivor's guilt, Nancy made #JusticeForBarb her mission in season two. She enlisted Jonathan and Murray, a journalist-turned-private investigator with a penchant for the supernatural, to publicly blame Hawkins Lab for Barb's death. Even if it wasn't the whole truth, it at least gave Barb's grieving parents some closure.

Still, the lack of attention paid to Barb's disappearance in season one — and the fact that she basically died because she was forced to be a third wheel — made her death one of the show's most memorable to date. Without Barb, "Stranger Things" would have had a lot less heart.

Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) was introduced in season four as the president of the high school's Hellfire Club, a group dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons, and a proud social outcast on the brink of graduation.

Eddie's refusal to conform, his not-so-secret dorkiness, plus his obvious affection for Mike, Erica (Priah Ferguson), and especially Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), made him immediately lovable. He was unwittingly thrust into the supernatural action when Chrissy was killed by Vecna's curse in his trailer.

Eddie's association with Hellfire Club made him an easy target for the police and angry mobs in Hawkins, and he spent most of the season in hiding — until he decided to join the original gang on their mission to invade the Upside Down. "I say you're asking me to follow you into Mordor, which, if I'm totally straight with you, I think is a really bad idea," he told Dustin, referencing "The Lord of the Rings." "But the Shire… the Shire is burning. So Mordor it is."

Eddie was assigned the task of distracting the Demobats so that Nancy, Steve, and Robin (Maya Hawke) could attack Vecna unimpeded. He succeeded by shredding through Metallica's "Master of Puppets" on his electric guitar, drawing the creatures toward him. Then, in a break from the original plan, he made sure Dustin was safe before sacrificing himself to keep the bats occupied.

Time of death: Season four, episode nine, "The Piggyback."

Cause of death: Stabbed by a colony of Demobats in the Upside Down.

Sadness ranking: 10. Almost from the moment Eddie arrived onscreen, it was pretty clear that he was doomed. "Stranger Things" always had a penchant for killing off newcomers, and Eddie made matters worse by declaring in his very first scene, "This is my year, I can feel it. '86, baby!" Talk about tempting fate.

With each of Eddie's increasingly endearing scenes — charming Chrissy, teasing Steve, forming a brotherly bond with Dustin — the idea of his impending death hurt a little bit more. By the time it actually happened and Eddie delivered that fateful full-circle line as he bled out in Dustin's arms ("I think it's my year, Henderson. I think it's finally my year"), it hit as close to agony as a fictional TV show death can get.